The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced rapid growth. Technological advances in IC materials, design, and fabrication tools have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of these advances, fabrication methods have strained to realize the desire for smaller feature sizes. The developed fabrication methods give rise to challenges however.
Fabrication methods to form thin film materials include techniques of chemical vapor deposition, atomic layer deposition, physical vapor deposition, epitaxial deposition, and the like. These techniques are typically accomplished by apparatuses having reaction chambers that contain a wafer support, e.g., a susceptor, upon which a semiconductor substrate is disposed. The susceptor can be a disc upon which the target substrate is positioned for the deposition process. Typically the susceptor rotates in order for the thin film to be deposited with greater uniformity onto the target substrate(s). However, one challenge in meeting fabrication goals is the formation of uniform, quality thin films on semiconductor substrates using these deposition apparatuses.